debut novel | Cindy L. Rodriguez

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When Reason Breaks: The Official Book Trailer

Posted on September 22, 2014 by cindylrodriguez One comment

The production of this book trailer was a family affair, which made it super fun. My sister, Saryna, let me use her home as our meeting place and production studio. She helped me to search for copyright-free photos and videos to match the novel. My niece, Alyna, is the first voice you’ll hear. She needed exactly two takes–what a pro! I can’t say the same for the rest of us. Attempts to narrate the rest of the video often ended with us laughing hysterically. We had so many takes that my daughter and younger nephew memorized it just from hearing us saying it over and over. And then there’s my genius nephew, Dean Jones, who probably should have been named Steve because he’s like the latest version of Steve Jobs & Steven Spielberg; plus, he’s a great DJ! He put the whole thing together on some fancy computer software. So, THANK YOU!!!! to my awesome family for helping me through this process. Here is the latest result: the official book trailer for my debut novel. For the best viewing, click on the settings icon and change it to 1080 HD. Enjoy and please share it with the readers in your life! Thanks!

When Reason Breaks

Enjoy an Excerpt from WHEN REASON BREAKS

Posted on July 31, 2014 by cindylrodriguez Leave a comment

A few When Reason Breaks Advance Reader Copies (ARC) are in readers’ hands, and more will be printed and distributed for promotional reasons within the next month or two. The first page of the ARC has an excerpt from the novel, and since the ARCs are out there, I figured it was fine to share this piece with all of you. If you need a brief description of the novel before you read the excerpt, click here and then come back.

Here’s a little extra info to put this into perspective: Emily and Elizabeth are not friends, but they share a mutual friend. They are at a Halloween party but are talking alone in a room in the house. Emily was there, reading a book and avoiding the crowd, and Elizabeth stumbled in looking for the bathroom. Here is a part of their conversation.

With wide eyes, Emily asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Elizabeth smiled and sucked hard on her straw.

“You’re lying,” Emily said with a grin.

“Maybe, but this isn’t about me. It’s about you. Tell them. Get it over with, Delgado.”

Emily shook her head and hugged the book to her chest. “Tell them what?”

Elizabeth stared at Emily. They were quiet, listening to voices in the hallway and the music pounding below them, so loud the floorboards vibrated.

Elizabeth sprang forward from her sitting position and crawled the few feet that separated her from Emily. She kneeled and sat back on her heels.

“Look at me,” she whispered. Emily pushed her back into the wall and locked gazes with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth scanned Emily’s face and then framed the girl’s eyes with her fingers.

“Ah, there it is,” said Elizabeth.

“What?”

“Hold still.” Elizabeth pressed down her index finger, closed her eyes, and said, “Click.”

“What are you doing?” asked Emily.

“I’m taking a mental picture of you.” Elizabeth leaned in closer. Emily inhaled sharply.

“I see you, Emily Delgado,” she whispered. “Your problem isn’t really about your friends or Kevin or your dad. You try to hide it, but I know.” Elizabeth patted Emily’s leg. “Trust me, I know.”

What do you think? Want to read more? Well…..you still have a little longer to wait, but for now, you can add it to your Goodreads list or you can pre-order it if you want to get it delivered to your house the day of its release (2/10/2015). I’ll be sharing other excerpts over the next few months, so stay tuned!

Available for pre-order:

My Novel Has a Title and Description!!!

Posted on March 10, 2014 by cindylrodriguez 4 comments

What an awesome day! My editor sent me an email with two great pieces of information: my novel has a new official title and an official description that will go into Bloomsbury’s catalog!

So, here’s the title…….

WHEN REASON BREAKS

Changing a title after working on project for so long can be nerve-wracking. This title is perfect, as it fits the story and it’s from one of Emily Dickinson’s poems that’s quoted in the book. The line is from Poem #340: “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain.” Here’s the stanza with the reference:

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down –

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing – then –

Okay, so I didn’t write a light-hearted romantic comedy. Maybe next time. For now, though, this is what will be available in less than a year:

13 Reasons Why meets the poetry of Emily Dickinson in this gripping debut novel perfect for fans of Sara Zarr or Jennifer Brown.

Meet Elizabeth Davis and Emily Delgado. A Goth girl with an attitude problem, Elizabeth must learn to control her anger before it destroys her. Emily appears to be a smart, sweet girl, with a normal life, but as depression clutches at her, she struggles to feel normal. Both girls are in Ms. Diaz’s English class, where they connect to the words of Emily Dickinson. Both are hovering on the edge of an emotional precipice. One of them will attempt suicide. And with Dickinson’s poetry as their guide, both girls must conquer their personal demons to ever be happy.

In an emotionally taut novel that is equal parts literary and commercial, with a richly diverse cast of characters, readers will relish in the poetry of Emily Dickinson and be completely swept up in the turmoil of two girls fighting for their lives.

Cindy L. Rodriguez is a former newspaper reporter turned public school teacher. She now teaches as a reading specialist at a Connecticut middle school but previously worked for the Hartford Courant and the Boston Globe. She and her young daughter live in Connecticut. When Reason Breaks is her debut novel.

GAHHHH!! Even though I know the general process of publishing and what to expect next, whenever something happens, I’m surprised and excited. I guess that’s a good thing. For those of you who were at SCBWI in New York, I’m taking Kate Messner’s advice and celebrating every step. For those of you who weren’t there, remember to savor small victorious moments, and it never hurts to celebrate with Aretha Frnaklin, so here’s the Queen of Soul!

My Novel in Word Art

Posted on February 17, 2014 by cindylrodriguez 2 comments

This is a quick post to show off my novel in word art form. In the past, I have had my students run projects through Wordle to create a “word cloud.” The actual size of each word in the cloud is based on the number of times it is used. It’s a great way to have students analyze key words and phrases that may have been overlooked during a first read.

I wasn’t surprised by the results for the characters’ names. Emily and Elizabeth are the main characters, and Ms. Diaz, Kevin, Tommy, Sarah, and Abby are supporting characters. I was surprised at how small “Dickinson” was (to the right of Elizabeth) considering Emily Dickinson’s life and poetry heavily influence the story. I also have a thing for body parts, it seems: face, eyes, hands, head. Hmmm.

Anyway, I’m a visual person, so I thought this was fun and cool. Try it! If you do, take a screen shot and share it in the comments.

One Step Closer to Publication!

Posted on February 14, 2014 by cindylrodriguez Leave a comment

First of all, Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! I hope your day is filled with lots of kisses, hugs, and chocolate!

So, this past week, I received the major news from my editor that my novel is out of the revision process and in a copy editor’s hands. I received lots of congratulations (thank you!) followed by the question, “What does that mean?” The short answer is that it is one major step closer to publication. Here’s more of an explanation…

The writing process is not linear, but it tends to have steps we all go through from idea to finished product. Here they are:

As a journalist, I lived this process daily. Get an assignment, do the research and interviews, draft the article, an editor reads it and makes corrections or offers suggestions, I revise it, it gets read again and, when ready, moves on to the copy desk, where editors take a super close look at it for errors, and then prepare it to be published in the newspaper.

The book publication process is similar, but while the newspaper business runs through these steps daily, months pass between each step when creating a book. Prewriting and drafting could take a year (seriously). In the middle of drafting, you may need to stop and return to the planning phase because something isn’t working and you have to think it through.

When you share it with others for revision suggestions, the revising and redrafting and revising and redrafting and….you get the picture…could go on for months. And in the middle of this process, you may leap back to prewriting/planning if you need to move chapters around and think through the structure and events. At one point, I stopped everything and used post-it notes on my wall to figure out how to tackle a major revision.

I’m not complaining. All of the revisions were worth it. The story I started drafting years ago is SOOOOO much better today thanks to suggestions from my family and friends, and later, my agent and editor. All of the drafting and revising has resulted in a story I’m proud of and excited to share soon with the world.

So, after looping through drafting and revising for months, to be told the manuscript has moved on to copy editing is a big deal, like jump-up-and-down-and-fist-bump-someone kind of excitement. Because this means the manuscript is out of the writing phase and into the production phase. Because if you refer to the chart (yes, I’m a teacher), the story is one pie shape closer to “Publish.” AGHHHHHH!!! Crazy, right?